Much more than ‘Middle-earth’ in end-of-the-Earth New Zealand
Please don’t call New Zealand paradise. The island country, like any, has its share of ills, from the highest teen suicide rate in the developed world to a brain drain that, for years, sucked many of its brightest away to places less remote — which would be just about anywhere. New Zealand, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, is far from everything, a fact that’s both its challenge and its treasure.
Countless travelers fantasize about New Zealand as a place untouched. It has also greatly inflated the country’s tourist trade that it’s actively promoted as “Middle Earth,” courtesy of “The Lord of the Rings” movies filmed here, along with countless other fantasy flicks, right up through “A Wrinkle in Time.” “The Hobbit” director Peter Jackson has his Weta Workshop in the capital city of Wellington, while his fellow mega-budget fantasy director James Cameron owns a farm in nearby Wairarapa Valley.
The projects produced by those two alone have gone a small ways toward reversing the country’s brain drain, giving local creatives work while drawing talented geeks from around the globe. The last two decades have also rallied locals through the rise of New Zealand’s wine industry, which now produces worldclass product I downed on Waiheke Island, near the city of Auckland, and in the lush vineyards of Marlborough on the northeastern tip of the South Island.
I paired the boozy beauties with the country’s coveted cheeses. Dairy products spar with tourism and wood as the top industries here. Cows rule the North Island, where I spent my trip. The less touristy North Island boasts a screen-saverworthy beauty that rivals the more mountainous and remote south.
The island also offers great opportunities for bicycle fetishists like me. During my stay, I took four cycling jaunts, each vastly different in challenge and setting. The first sent me around downtown Auckland, which boasts many dedicated lanes, all easily navigable, despite the city’s hilly topography. Biking let me breeze through the Wynyard Quarter, which snakes around the wide harbor, on over to the Britomart precinct, which features some of the few heritage Victorian buildings preserved in a town more prone to tearing-downand building anew.
For a sense of New Zealand’s sadly buried history, two museums are musts. The Maritime Museum (maritimemuseum. co.nz), by the harbor, finds its highlight in the finely carved wooden ships created by the native Maori people. It’s mindboggling to realize they only arrived here, from Polynesia, 800 years ago.
Up a few hills, you’ll find The Auckland Museum (aucklandmuseum.com), which features a Maori meeting house (a wharenui) which you can enter, along with a fun immersive simulation of the volcano blow that’s always threatening to turn the place into the next Pompeii. Ditching the bike, I took a 35-minute ferry out to Waiheke Island, which boasts first-class wineries. A highlight was Passage Rock, where I sipped a Reserve Chardonnay that lingered on the palate. The rolling land has equal staying power. Views from tony wineries like Mudbrick Vineyard stretch all the way back to the city.
Snaking down to the picturesque town of Rotorua, I stopped at Hobbiton, the set for all flicks related to works by fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien. You can see why Peter Jackson chose this dreamy sheep farm over the zillion others he rejected. The sculpted land, by the Kaimai Range of mountains, evokes a children’s picture book.
Far more legit is Rotorua, the center of New Zealand’s Maori life. Here, you can learn about the rich culture, and cruel treatment, of the indigenous people. Te Puia (tepuia.com), a center dedicated to their culture, is the best place to absorb all that.